You can block but when you have all ready people of the EU in your system you still fall under GDPR. Also if people use a proxy to access your site again you fall under GDPR. The easiest way is to make sure you are GDPR compliant and it does not have to cost so much. Also if you want this you’ll need to pay it as long as you have your site.

You can block but when you have all ready people of the EU in your system you still fall under GDPR. Also if people use a proxy to access your site again you fall under GDPR. The easiest way is to make sure you are GDPR compliant and it does not have to cost so much. Also if you want this you’ll need to pay it as long as you have your site.

Click to expand...

This is what I find obscure. Are EU users become superiors now? They come to my house despite not welcoming then I fall under GDPR

GDPR does not care that your site is hidden or notas long as it contains GDPR information you fall under it as long that its a EU person and the person is on i think you say it on EU soil.

Click to expand...

They'd like to THINK that you do. As soon as I can start suing EU nation members in my local small claims court for tort actions then maybe we have something to talk about.
Ironically I remember a nation going to war over something similar but involving taxation.

And as I said in another post... I'm sure there is some vague law somewhere that prohibits bypassing security measures that are in place. Once your EU person bypasses that, they lose all GDPR "protection" rights they may have had.

EDIT:
BTW, for those interested and using CSF, the appropriate change consists of modifying the CC_DENY to

Why worry about that when CSF can do it at the firewall level. Of course, if you are on shared hosting that could present a problem.

Click to expand...

I've found country blocking to be faster using mod_maxmind versus the firewall, it's optimized specifically for it. Doesn't matter how big the country's IP block range is, it makes no impact on speed. Doing it via the firewall for countries like China, for instance, creates thousands of rules.

You can block but when you have all ready people of the EU in your system you still fall under GDPR. Also if people use a proxy to access your site again you fall under GDPR. The easiest way is to make sure you are GDPR compliant and it does not have to cost so much. Also if you want this you’ll need to pay it as long as you have your site.

Click to expand...

False.

https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-23/ - GDPR says you have to target their users. A web site actively blocking EU users is certainly not targeting them, and is not responsible for people trying to circumvent the block.

"In order to ensure that natural persons are not deprived of the protection to which they are entitled under this Regulation, the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or a processor not established in the Union should be subject to this Regulation where the processing activities are related to offering goods or services to such data subjects irrespective of whether connected to a payment. 2In order to determine whether such a controller or processor is offering goods or services to data subjects who are in the Union, it should be ascertained whether it is apparent that the controller or processor envisages offering services to data subjects in one or more Member States in the Union. 3Whereas the mere accessibility of the controller’s, processor’s or an intermediary’s website in the Union, of an email address or of other contact details, or the use of a language generally used in the third country where the controller is established, is insufficient to ascertain such intention, factors such as the use of a language or a currency generally used in one or more Member States with the possibility of ordering goods and services in that other language, or the mentioning of customers or users who are in the Union, may make it apparent that the controller envisages offering goods or services to data subjects in the Union."

I've found country blocking to be faster using mod_maxmind versus the firewall, it's optimized specifically for it. Doesn't matter how big the country's IP block range is, it makes no impact on speed. Doing it via the firewall for countries like China, for instance, creates thousands of rules.

Click to expand...

You can do the same if you use the geoip module in nginx. In fact, if you use CentMin Mod, you are already mostly there.
Currently my pipe site should be returning a 403 error to any EU member country.
And it looks to be working as this is using a proxy out of Germany.

I'll modify a custom page to return later reflecting that due to their being in the EU and my disagreeing with their policy on who is subject to their control citizens of those areas are not allowed membership.
And it's done - nginx returns a 451 (which to me is an appropriate status return code), with a custom page being displayed that is pretty clear as to the why.
If anyone in the EU would like to try it out, please do and see if it blocks you. This should also take quite a load off the server firewall blocking.

And the cost involved... absolutely nothing. There is the load on the server HTTP process to deny the connection. I could have simply used a 444 return but rather "send a message" with the 451 return.
While I was at it I did an additional one for China, Pakistan and India. They get the 444 return though.

Stupid question from a non-European: is this a generally accepted list of GDPR country codes?

Due to the size of the block list, I would recommend it only on a dedicated server or a larger VPS.

Click to expand...

I've been using ipset to manage CC blocking. It hashes the subnets and makes for one entry into iptables. Doesn't seem to have affected memory usage in any way that I've noticed. Most guides to ipset talk about patching and recompiling for kernel support. Debian (and Ubuntu I presume) has support in the mainstream kernel, so just need to install ipset.

I do appreciate the tips on using nginx geoip and mod_maxmind. I didn't particularly want to firewall block Europeans as I'd still like to be able to receive email from them.

Be sure that the geoip_country points to the actual location of the GeoIP.dat file.
Then in the server section of your vhost config file place

Code:

if ($EU_no = no) {
return 451;
}

you can use 444 as the return and it will drop the connection without notifying the user why, or you can create a custom html file and use it. You just have to define the file that you want it to point at in nginx.conf and then create it.

Missed it (was late and was playing Fallout 4 when I did the nginx change) but it's added in.

I also think it's really funny that in denying the EU zone from forums, you deny a larger audience than the entire US population...

Click to expand...

Yeah, you may miss users... but sometimes when you stand up for something you believe in there is a loss.
But I've also got a feeling you may find more and more smaller sites doing this very thing. It's apparently GDPR compliant - as it's readily apparent you are NOT pursuing any EU member states citizens since you are making an attempt to prevent their connecting to your site. Since you are not actively pursuing them, they have no dog in the hunt.

What is "bad" for me is that several of those countries have a long, rich history in tobacco and tobacco pipes (Ireland, Great Britain, France, Denmark, and Belgium just to name a few) so I could be missing out on some good content creators joining.

Personally I believe that users should have control of their data, rights to their privacy, and appropriate controls enshrined in law to protect these.

I'm in the EU and I believe in the spirit of the law and what it aims to do. You're right, sometimes there is a loss when you fight for something you believe in. I'm prepared to lose my time to defend the rights of the users who give me their data.

Here's another thought if you're planning on blocking the EU: it encourages creation of competition from the EU where they're compliant and embracing audiences inside and outside the EU.